Monthly Archives: November 2012

The next book in The Fallen series, Child of Mercy is now available for sale on Amazon and Barnes and Noble! It’s out as an e-book for $3.99 but you don’t have to have a Kindle or Nook to read it, they have free downloadable apps so you can read it on your PC, or even your phone. It’ll be available in print as well in a couple of weeks through Amazon.

“Have you ever gone to sleep one night and woken up and it’s two months later? Okay, not literally, but I swear it felt like two months went by in the blink of an eye. Still no word from Adam, but each day got easier to accept his absence, and I started to believe he might never come home. I started to think… maybe I didn’t want him to anymore.”

Child of Mercy continues the saga of angels and demons in Book IV of The Fallen. Left to raise a child on her own, Mercy contends with normal pregnancy woes, and a slew of dangers as new enemies and old vie for a piece of the child. Her heavenly cousins don’t seem all that pleased with her impending motherhood either, and Mercy needs all the help she can get to keep her baby safe. Luckily, she has friends and family around to help out (a little too much family if you ask Mercy), especially Parker who is more than happy to fill Adam’s vacant shoes. The question remains – will Adam stay away? And more importantly, if he waits too long, will Mercy want him to?

I’m taking a little bit of a break before starting my next in the Forged Bloodlines series, Find Me When the Sun Goes Down. I can’t wait to get back to Anja and Bishop and I hope to have it out by Spring of 2013

As promised, another deleted scene for Mercy for the Damned. I could have sworn, I posted this over a week ago, but apparently I never hit the button! This one takes place at the end of Chapter Five. I do love my dream sequences, but there just wasn’t room for it in the final draft.

Strong arms reached around my waist from behind, and I threw my dishrag down in disgust, expecting to see Parker’s cheesy grin over my shoulder. “I thought I told you not to get gropey with me at work unless I give you my permission?”

Instead, another deep voice stirred the hair by my ear. “Is there someone other that me you’d be giving permission to?”

“Adam!” I whirled to see him with my own eyes, throwing my arms around him in an enthusiastic hug. “Oh my God, what are you doing here? When did you get out?” I demanded, half laughing, half crying.

“Cool it, your co-workers are gonna think I just got out of prison,” he chuckled, pulling back to brush the hair away from my cheek.

“Well… you did, didn’t you?” My eyes drank him in, feasting after being starved from his presence for so long. He looked good enough to eat, dressed in his usual black jeans and a black button up shirt. His hair seemed a little longer, and my fingers itched to grab a pair of scissors and attempt to tame it.

“Sadly no, I’m still there,” he pouted, but he didn’t look all that disturbed by the notion.

“What? Then… how are you here?”

“Beats the hell out of me, it’s your dream,” he shrugged as if it was unimportant.
A dream. All at once it dawned upon me; I must be in the Ether, the space between being awake and dreaming. “I thought you couldn’t get to the Ether from Midian?” Otherwise I’d have spent all my time in bed.

“I’m not, it’s just a good old fashioned dream. So let’s enjoy it before the Gestapo notices us.”

“Huh? I looked up and sure enough, there were demons dressed in World War II Nazi uniforms lined up at the bar, enjoying a beer and ignoring us. The rest of the club underwent a shift, somehow merging the old with the new. Civilians and military alike slow danced to an old fashioned big band sound, among the colorful, modern play of lights on the dance floor. Turning around, I saw Adam dressed in the olive drab of an old army uniform, his chest decorated with ribbons. It occurred to me; he could have very well served in the army during the war, or any number of wars over the past hundreds of years.

“Come on, baby, let’s dance like there’s no tomorrow.” Grabbing my hand, he tugged me out there, and I tottered on heels I hadn’t been wearing moments before, my dress longer and tighter than my usual work uniform.

Thanks to everyone who chimed in with baby names for Child of Mercy, I love all the great suggestions! Now I have a bunch more names to add to my fave names spreadsheet for future characters. I’m happy to say I picked a name suggested by Beckie (though I won’t say which name I picked for now, I don’t want to spoil the surprise), and it’s a perfect fit!

I have to say I’m excited to see what you guys think of this one, the characters completely hijacked my plot and took over – but in a good way. What they came up with is way better than what I had planned. Right now the book is working its way through my editing team and then it comes back to me for my final edits.

Next up will be the third book in the Forged Bloodlines series, Find Me When the Sun Goes Down. I can’t wait to get back to those guys and take Bishop and Anja overseas.

I’m sure a lot of you know, I work in the insurance industry. When a major disaster hits like hurricane Sandy, we all pull together to help out, even though I’m in auto insurance. Over the past week we got over 40,000 claims and at last report, they’re still coming in by the thousands. I’m not one of the brave scrambling to fly out there and help people face to face. Those of us left in the office (and they took a third of my dept) are left trying to somehow absorb all the work of those who were deployed and keep up with the busier holiday season, all while helping to field some of those incoming property claims to obtain more information so we can help triage the worst claims as best we can.

Here’s what I’ve learned this week. Rich people suck. Let me preface this by saying, I’ve talked to so many nice people who are just grateful that they survived the storm and their friends and families are safe and sound. Most people have been very understanding of the process, and we tell them they don’t have to wait on us to get their repairs started, just keep receipts and pictures of the damages. And then there’s the rich and entitled who expect us to magically have someone on their doorstep by the next day to replace their entire roof because a few shingles are missing and they don’t want a simple repair done.

I spoke to a NY woman yesterday who bitched because I wouldn’t escalate her claim and help her find “emergency relocation assistance” because she was displaced by flooding water. Okay, let’s define her emergency displacement a little more here. The very first thing she makes a point of telling me is that her condo is valued at 2.5 million dollars. The woman and her kids were evacuated and she has learned that her condo building did flood in the basement and 1st floor. Her unit is on the 5th floor and is currently without power. She has a flooded storage space in the basement, spoiled food in the fridge and her fridge leaked onto the kitchen floor, which may *or may not* have damage to it. How does she know this? Because she made her nanny go check the damage and clean it up. She isn’t on the street with her two kids, she’s staying at her brother’s house in New Jersey, but she doesn’t *want* to stay there, she wants to stay in the city because it’s more convenient. I tried explaining to her that we’re doing the best we can with a disaster of this magnitude, but I can’t escalate her claim because that’s reserved for real emergencies. To put it in perspective, I have a guy who’s living in his car because his bedroom and living room are flooded with backed up sewage. I have a guy who can’t stay in his car because there’s a roof on top of it. He can’t tell if it’s his roof or his neighbor’s roof because they’re both completely off.

I’m pretty sure if this woman can afford a 2.5 mil condo, she can make some arrangements to pay for a hotel stay if she *needs* to be in the city. But instead she chose to bitch and moan to me about how inconvenient this all is for her because I couldn’t guarantee we could reimburse her for something like that and she’d have to wait to talk to her adjuster to go over coverage. I’ve never felt *less* empathy towards a human being in my life. If it was possible for me to de-escalate her claim, I would have.

So here I am, up at 5am on a Saturday, too stressed to sleep, thinking about sucky people and all the stuff I have to cram into my weekend because I am so wiped out every day after work. I know, I’m grateful I wasn’t in the hurricane myself, and I’m grateful to have a good job. But I swear, my final sixty days at work are shaping up to be the most sucktastic in my six years in the industry. Here’s to hoping I can survive the stress!

Spoiler alert! (don’t read on if you don’t want to know a little something about the bun in Mercy’s oven)

Hey guys, I’m having the hardest time naming Mercy’s baby. The first draft is done and it literally says *insert name here* whenever she’s mentioned. Oh yeah, that’s my spoiler, the baby is a girl! I’ve gone through a list of possibles, but nothing’s grabbing me. Ideally I’d like a name that is also a word (like Mercy) so I could possibly use it in titles in the future. The obvious ones like Hope, Faith and Grace come to mind, but too obvious I think.

So, here’s where you come in. I’m taking suggestions for baby names. If I go with your suggestion (you must be the first one to suggest it if there are multiples), you get a signed copy of the book when it’s out and a shout out in the acknowledgments.